New York Police Officer Charged With Using Dead Man’s Credit Card

A New York City police officer was arrested on Tuesday and charged with stealing a dead man’s credit card and using it to buy a diamond ring. She pleaded not guilty on Tuesday afternoon.

Officer Ymmacula Pierre, 30, was on duty on July 14, 2014, when she responded to 911 call saying that a 65-year-old man with health problems had not shown up to work, prosecutors said. She went to the man’s apartment on East 14th Street near Union Square in Manhattan for a wellness check, where she discovered the man dead.

In keeping with police protocol, prosecutors said, Officer Pierre then collected some of the dead man’s property, including a Citibank MasterCard.

Two days later, prosecutors said, the MasterCard number was used to buy a diamond ring from the website of Zales. The ring cost $3,282.58.

Prosecutors said investigators traced the IP address of the computer used for that purchase to the apartment of Officer Pierre’s boyfriend — the same address she listed as her emergency contact on Police Department forms.

The order was processed and the ring was shipped from a warehouse, prosecutors said, but a niece of the dead man was notified of possible credit card fraud and FedEx was able to cancel the delivery.

“No grieving relative should have to worry about alleged theft and misconduct by a uniformed officer in the aftermath of a loved one’s passing,” the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said in a statement.

A lawyer for Officer Pierre, who has been with the New York Police Department for almost three years, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Prosecutors also said a new Samsung Galaxy phone that belonged to the dead man, which Officer Pierre used to call his niece after she found him, disappeared a short time later.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Officer Charged in Use of Dead Man’s Card. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe